W hile walking down a street in Warsaw as I was passing by a rack of postcards, I wondered to myself: “Who actually sends postcards anymore?”
Does Anyone Send Postcards Anymore?
Postcards were still a way of letting people know that you were thinking of them while you were away from home when I first started traveling. Calling someone via telephone was still expensive; and there were not as many ways to communicate then as there are today.
You can now use technology to communicate with someone at little or no cost, thanks in large part to the advent of the Internet. E-mail messages, instant messaging, and text and video chat can all be employed at no charge in many cases; and photographs can be sent within seconds of taking them — creating customized instant electronic postcards of sorts.
Sending Postcards From Hotel and Resort Properties
I have never taken advantage of this service; but did you know that some hotel and resort properties offered a courtesy service to send your postcards for you at no additional cost?
“Marriott no longer offers complimentary postage on postcards” is what FlyerTalk member xtremeski2001 posted in this discussion last year, giving the impression that Marriott International, Incorporated had such a policy — of which some FlyerTalk members were unaware.
FlyerTalk member cohighcountry1k could not believe that one hotel property wanted to charge four dollars to mail out a postcard back in 2010 which marketed the hotel property. “Even Westin hotels have mailed cards for me! I can understand if it’s a postcard I purchased that I am responsible for the postage — but not the hotel’s post card.”
The general manager of the hotel in question posted an apology to cohighcountry1k in that discussion.
Postcards for Special Projects
Several requests have been posted on FlyerTalk for postcards to be sent for various reasons:
- A competition at an elementary school as to which class in the first grade can receive the most postcards from the furthest reaches of our planet prompted a request for FlyerTalk members to assist back in 2012 — and that the name of the student should be mentioned on the postcard itself.
- The daughter of a friend of FlyerTalk member chrissxb wanted picture postcards from fancy places with some nice stamps on them, as she simply wanted people to congratulate her on having just graduated from high school at the time in 2009.
- A class in the second grade collected postcards as part of its 2008-2009 geography curriculum; and FlyerTalk members were asked to help in this campaign and broaden the knowledge of the world for those students.
- FlyerTalk members sent postcards from around the world to the sister of FlyerTalk member SkiAdcock, who suffered from an aggressive form of breast cancer back in 2008 — and the postcards cheered her up prior to her eventually succumbing to the dreaded disease. This heartwarming discussion is definitely worth reading.
Summary
I personally cannot remember the last time I sent a postcard; but I would not be surprised if there are many people who still send postcards today…
…but I did not see anyone look at or touch any of the postcards in the rack shown in the photograph at the top of this article…
All photographs ©2017 by Brian Cohen.
